I have spent quite a lot if time of late looking at artists who interest me for different reasons. Most of the work that follows has a large ‘Gee Whizz that’s big’ factor. I’m struggling to find much work that deals with the wordier end of what I’m dealing with, or that inspires me to think on it. I’ll be commenting on this soon as I think it might need a bit of its own breathing space.

Anselm Kiefer

I want the part of this project that’s about the very genesis of language to have a sense of primal origins about it. I think in many of Anselm Kiefer’s paintings there’s an incredibly strong sense of ‘usness’ – this is our history. I love the fact that his work so often feels like part of the fabric of the dawn of a time long before ours. The scale of his pictures lends itself to feeling immersed in the pictures as well. The pictures from his series about the Jewish exodus from Israel show this well. Of course, in these paintings the narrative/mythological background add to the immersive effect; and then there’s the obvious thing of his being a German artist working through a few issues, on a national scale. Just imagine them 20 foot wide and you’re some of the way there.